


When Water Falls

by vulcansmirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcansmirk/pseuds/vulcansmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Spock were a poet, he might measure out his life in raindrops. But he isn't, so he won't.</p><p>A collection of drabbles centered around Spock in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Earth Rain

If Spock were a poet, he might have measured out his life in raindrops.

It was raining on the first day he clearly remembered visiting Earth as a child. His mother had taken him to a park by the bay; the water had looked so gray and still from afar, but up close it vibrated as the sky came down to meet it. He remembered clearly the way his mother had smiled.

It was raining the day he got off the shuttle at Starfleet Academy. His own words still rang harshly in his ears  _(Ministers, I must decline),_  and he may not have believed his own memories had he not carried with him the look of betrayal on his father’s face. Sarek hadn’t said a single word to him as he packed up his things. Spock stepped off the shuttle with hatred and bitterness roiling in his stomach — but when he smelled the clean, crisp scent of new rain on the asphalt, he began to think that maybe he would be alright after all.

It was raining on the day of his graduation, a light drizzle that made almost no sound. His mother had smiled then, too, warm and guileless. Somehow, she had convinced Sarek to attend, though he still protested Spock’s enlistment; as Spock caught sight of him standing sternly in the distance, he thought, illogically, that the man looked  _right_  here. He was born of a desert race, but he stood, breathed, moved like the rain — cleanly, quietly, and with an unspoken power.

It rained the day Spock met Jim Kirk. It was sunny the afternoon of the hearing, but Spock rose in the early morning to find the last of a hard night rain dissipating. As the sun rose, it glistened off of still-wet roads and dewy grass, and Spock remembered wondering if that meant anything, if it was somehow symbolic. Illogical, of course. But then Kirk asked to face his accuser, and Spock stood brusquely; the other man turned, and that startling blue glistened like the raindrops on Spock’s windowpane in the sunlight. It felt clean.

Spock was not a poet. But he was quite fond of rain.


	2. First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was raining the first time Kirk kissed him.

It was raining the first time Kirk kissed him.

It was after Nero, but before Khan; whispers had just begun to spread throughout Starfleet that HQ was planning on assigning a crew to the first ever five-year mission. Five years roaming the galaxy, exploring new planets, encountering new life. When Spock heard the rumors, he thought of the tiny twinkling smiles of the stars, so very far away. He wondered what it would be like to travel so far out there that he no longer remembered the existence of this small blue planet, or the nonexistence of a slightly bigger red one. His chest ached.

But when Kirk heard… When Kirk heard, his endless vibrating energy became almost impossible to bear. Since they had returned to San Francisco following Nero’s defeat — and they had floated there in the empty black for hours on only impulse power, quietly putting distance between them and the singularity they had created as they waited for a starship that hadn’t ejected its warp core to tow them back to Earth — Kirk seemed determined to insinuate himself into Spock’s life. Spock knew, of course, what his alternate-universe counterpart had said of the friendship he and Kirk were destined to share, but as he sat with a PADD reading reports on the  _Enterprise’s_  repairs and Kirk buzzed happily in his ear like a wasp, Spock felt increasingly that his counterpart must have been mistaken.

Kirk sat with one leg curled beneath him (on Spock’s bed, and since when had Spock begun allowing people into his quarters?) and bounced up and down like an excited child. Outside, the rain hissed against sun-warmed asphalt. A thin mist hung low to the ground.

"Can you just  _imagine_  it, Spock?" Kirk grinned a wide, guileless grin.  _"Five years_  in space! What do you think we’d find out there? I can’t even begin to think! How much of our galaxy has been explored — three percent? Four? And even in the minuscule sliver we’d cover, how many undiscovered places and peoples would we be the first to see? And god, can you think of anything more beautiful than endless, star-studded space opening up in front of you?"

When Kirk failed to continue, Spock looked up. He met Kirk’s wide-eyed, expectant gaze tiredly.

"While I appreciate your anticipation," he began slowly, “I am also trying to coordinate repair efforts for your ship, captain. In any case, it is illogical to assume that they would choose the least-experienced crew in the ‘fleet to undertake such a momentous assignment."

Kirk simply huffed. “Spock, you’re such a pessimist," he said, rolling his eyes. “You’ve been staring at that PADD too long. Come on, let’s go for a walk."

Spock glanced out the window. “Captain, it is raining," he protested, but only because he felt he probably should. Spock held a special kind of fondness for Earth rain, and truthfully, he relished the idea of a walk.

Luckily, Kirk ignored his protests. “It’s just water, Spock, it won’t hurt you. Unless you’re worried it’ll fuck up your perfect helmet of hair." He smirked. “I’ve got it! You’re a witch! The water will melt you!"

Spock deadpanned. Then, biting back a world-weary sigh, he stood, set his PADD on the desk, and wordlessly crossed to the door.

"I fail to understand why a witch should disintegrate when wet," Spock said conversationally as he and Kirk walked down the hallway in the officers’ quarters, headed toward the exit.

Kirk jogged a little to keep pace with Spock’s long, brisk strides. “You can’t tell me you’ve never seen  _The Wizard of Oz._ ”

"If that is an Earthling production of some sort, I cannot say I have encountered it," replied Spock. “The only art form I associate with regularly is music, and then rarely do I seek out anything of non-Vulcan origin."

As they passed through a glass door speckled with droplets and emerged into a light, misting rain, Spock turned to see a somewhat surprised smile on Kirk’s face.

"I didn’t know you were into music," he said wonderingly.

Spock faced front. “It is a widely respected art among my people," he replied. “Many Vulcan children take music lessons beginning almost before they learn proper speech. Music is a language, of a sort, and one most Vulcans are fluent in, in addition to Vulcan and Terran Standard. I myself took lessons on the Vulcan lute, and when my father mandated that I learn piano as a way of acquainting me with old Earth culture."

When Spock glanced at his companion, Kirk was once again grinning. It was almost the same grin as when he’d waxed histrionic about Starfleet’s rumored five-year mission. But it was slightly different, too; the light in his eyes was altogether brighter and more subdued, almost delicate. Spock looked away.

"You learn something new every day, I guess," Kirk continued. “But there’s still no excuse for the fact that you don’t know about  _The Wizard of Oz._  It even has music in it for you, Mr. Elevated Society." He paused. “You know, I think they’re putting it on at the old playhouse next week. We should go."

Spock let the offer dissolve, unconfirmed and undenied, into the silence. Kirk seemed unperturbed, and simply fell into a comfortable pace at Spock’s side.

They traveled now down a wide, gray cement walkway. It stretched a long way directly ahead of them, and at the end of it, in the middle of the light swirling mist, Spock could make out the dome of the arboretum. He wondered if they had set the internal environmental controls to reflect the rain outside.

Cool air eddied around them, slipping over Spock’s skin with the same temperature and pressure of a gentle human hand. A layer of slightly warmer, slightly wetter air hovered around his ankles, where rain heated to the point of evaporation by the still-warm ground began its journey back up to the clouds.

How strange, whispered an illogical voice in the back of Spock’s mind. The whole of the universe lay twinkling beyond those clouds, but the rain would be forever trapped within this infinitesimal sphere. Even when it returned to the sky once more, it could go no further.

They had turned now from the main path, traveling down a narrow capillary through quietly dripping trees and emerged at the edge of the ocean. A cement platform extended over the water, only a flimsy railing separating two misty figures from the endless vibrating expanse of the ocean.

Spock stood just shy of that railing, and Kirk walked up beside him and leaned on it, looking out into empty space.

"What’re you thinking about?" he asked.

Spock considered the question. “I am thinking of how very much I would like to spend five years exploring the galaxy," he answered, surprising himself with his honesty.

Kirk turned his whole body, leaning on the railing with one arm and smiling, wide and happy, at Spock.

"Really?" asked Kirk, wondering and strangely disbelieving.

"Vulcans do not lie," said Spock simply.

The sun itself seemed to have perched in Kirk’s eyes, bluer than any ocean or any gem. Still smiling, he straightened, reached out and grasped Spock’s shoulder.

"We could do it, you know," he whispered. “She’s waiting for us up there — our ship. We could go anywhere."

Spock was about to point out the many restrictions on that highly fanciful statement, not the least of which were the repairs still being effected on the ship, but his attention was drawn when Kirk’s smile began to fade. His very blue eyes remained locked with Spock’s for a long moment, and then they drifted down.

The rain sounded like one long, hissing breath, and as a thin fog rolled in off the water, Kirk leaned forward, slowly, and with more hesitation than Spock had ever seen in him before. He paused just shy of Spock’s lips, and hardly seemed to be breathing, but Spock still felt a small gust of warmth against his skin. When he did not pull away, Kirk closed the gap.

The fog rolled in. The rain breathed.

Kirk pulled away, and the hard grip of his hand on Spock’s shoulder as well as the faint anxiety filtering through the touch alerted Spock to his confusion. Spock himself felt surprisingly calm.

But Kirk stepped back, somewhat shakily. “Hey, I — listen." He faltered. “That was — I mean — listen, that doesn’t have to — it didn’t mean anything. I mean, if you don’t want it to. I mean, we can just forget about that. If you want. Or whatever."

Spock gave no response. Just looked at Kirk, feeling strangely blank.

"I — right, okay." Kirk rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Well, hey, listen, I’m gonna — I’ve gotta go meet Bones," he said, and Spock immediately picked up on the lie. “I’ll see you later, okay?"

Spock just looked. After a short pause, Kirk nodded, and left.

It took Spock an interminable span to sort through his thoughts. In that time, the rain grew heavier, louder, chasing away the fog and what warmth still lingered in the asphalt.

He glanced up at the sky one last time. Thought once more of the rain, and its endless cycle between land and atmosphere, never able to break free. Then he, too, left.

When Kirk turned up at his door two days later with tickets to  _The Wizard of Oz,_  Spock considered the matter forgotten.


	3. Lightning Storms

Spock had seen a fair number of Earth rains since his childhood, and he was very fond, but he was particularly fond of lightning storms.

Something about thunder was satisfying to him. It rumbled and groaned from a distance, and when it passed overhead it rattled his very bones. It always made its presence unmistakable. He felt he could time his heart by  those booms — wide and aching and deliberate.

The rain, too, felt more real at those times than any other. You could hear it the moment it reached you and began it’s soft pitter-patter on the street; then it was like a wave rolling onto the shore, becoming louder, heavier, deeper. With the whole world wrapped in the rush of that downpour, Spock felt inexplicably as though he were being cleansed. The sharp smell of water filled his lungs, and he felt calm.

Lightning he found most fascinating of all. There and gone again in less than a blink, but when it was there it filled the whole sky with its luminescence. It was the conduit through which the sky realigned itself with the ground, when the charge of the clouds became too strong and it needed to be stabilized. The bolts were ragged, random, and yet so particular in spite of their appearance. They were the elusive equalizers. When the rains thickened and the thunder commenced, Spock would sit at his window, motionless, and try to catch every bolt of lightning in his sights. He never could. And what he really wanted — shamefully, illogically — was to touch one, to grab hold of it before it went away and follow it to that nowhere place it escaped to from the world of the living. How soft might it be? How solid? How warm? How would it feel to have that kind of electricity coursing through his veins?

On the bridge of the  _Enterprise,_  Spock would catch a glimpse of Kirk in his captain’s chair, and in a crisis, Kirk’s guard would drop, and Spock felt at those times a little like he did during a lightning storm. He wanted to grab hold of that man and follow him to wherever it was he went when others were watching.


End file.
